Second Thoughts
by Manchester
Summary: Just why did Ethan Rayne cause Halloween chaos at Sunnydale in the first place? The usual reasons (worship Janus, torment his old friend Giles, enjoy the costumes' anarchy, etc.) don't seem very convincing. Maybe if he'd paused to think it over...


Humming to himself while walking into the high school library the first week of November, Rupert Giles savored the early-morning solitude of being the first one in the building today. It'd been a rare period of quietude on the Hellmouth for the past several days, ever since Halloween and lasting up to now. Giles knew it wouldn't continue forever, but he was more than glad enough to take pleasure in the present calmness among the usually malevolent supernatural denizens lurking throughout the sewers and other hidden places of this California city.

Taking his seat at the library desk, Giles' eyebrows lifted in mild surprise at seeing the beige manila envelope laying atop there. He wasn't expecting any mail this early, especially since the envelope hadn't been stamped or gave any other indication it'd gone through the post office. The only thing to be seen on the upper face of the envelope was his name lettered in spiky handwriting which didn't match that of the remaining Sunnydale High staff who might've for some reason put it there after Giles had departed from the library yesterday. It also definitely wasn't what Giles had seen of the penmanship of that bad-tempered, bald Lilliputian known more formally around the school as Principal Snyder, thank God.

Pulling out a handkerchief from his front suit pocket and beginning to polish his glasses, Giles contemplated this minor mystery. All he knew for sure was that envelope couldn't be some sort of sneak attack upon him by the Council's enemies who knew about the Slayer and her Watcher currently guarding Sunnydale. Any attempt to physically poison Giles, set off an actual explosive device, or cast some harmful magical spell against him through this communication would've been prevented by the protective enchantments laid by Giles upon his own desk. Even though he'd virtually given up practicing any sort of overt magic ever since his deeply-regretted London university days which ended with Giles going on the straight and narrow after a horrific demon-summoning incident gone wrong, this Englishman allowed himself that minor safeguard since it seemed necessary at the time of taking up his Watcher duties here.

Putting away both his glasses and handkerchief back into their customary places, Giles eventually shrugged. It appeared as if the most sensible thing to do was to just open the bloody envelope and see what it contained. There was one more safety precaution to take first, though.

Picking up a spare pen lying at the right edge of the desk, Giles gingerly poked at the envelope a few times. Nothing particularly noteworthy occurred, save for Giles learning there was perhaps only a single sheet or two of paper inside the flat envelope. Feeling a trifle ashamed of his paranoia, Giles harrumphed to himself and laid down the pen, reaching for the envelope designed to contain other documents.

Quickly opening the flap held closed by a metal clasp with two prongs folded flat through a reinforced eyelet, Giles shook out two sheets of paper onto the desktop. The uppermost sheet was blank, causing Giles to put down the envelope and then to grab and turn over the papers into their proper position for him to read.

The first two words on the handwritten sheet of paper had Giles immediately recognize the author who'd inscribed them there, followed by this librarian's stomach undergoing painful spasms, chilly sweat breaking out upon his brow, mouth turning dry, and face becoming paper white, all at reading:

_Hello, Ripper!_

Unable to stop, Giles kept on numbly perusing to the end.

_I trust you had an undisturbed All Hallows Eve for both yourself and your lovely charge with her unbelievable first name? You can thank me for that, dear boy._

_Oh, yes, indeed. I was about to re-introduce myself that night after so many years of us losing touch with each other._

_You didn't call, you didn't write. Why, people might think you were actually ashamed of your old chum Ethan. Was that nice?_

_No, it wasn't._

_So when I finally tracked you down, imagine my happiness! Stuffy tweedy Rupert, who'd done his best to bury every memory of our delightful times raising hell throughout London Town's more insalubrious districts and pubs, was now mentoring one of those deadly little bints known as Slayers. Knowing you, it must be constant torture to be aware Miss Summers has the extremely dim survival prospects of a single packet of crisps shared out through the entire hungry crowd at Wembley._

_Naturally, I decided to end the suspense for once and all. It took me months, but it was all worthwhile. Want to learn about my cunning plan? Of course you do!_

_Over the years, I've become a devotee of Janus and was in turn granted a good deal of mystical power by this deity. I thought it only fitting for me to sow chaos throughout your current residence of the Boca del Infierno on such a wonderful holiday as Halloween. What I did was to order enough costumes of all kinds to fill up a whole shop. After shipping those garments to some temporary place in that city's business district and then selling them at random to my customers, I would next carry out a ceremony with my god's help. The consequences? Why, whichever costume being worn by their current owner would immediately take over that person, causing them to behave and act most amusingly for the rest of the night._

_That definitely included your Slayer too, Ripper. Please don't think I couldn't have. You must remember how good I was at talking birds out of their knickers since you were quite happy to share the benefits of this with me. It would've been quite a bit different to persuade Miss Summers into actually put on a dress or other garment, but I foresaw no real difficulties. The only uncertainty was exactly what a superhuman girl would find most limiting of her powers, though I had some ideas about which'd sufficiently do the trick._

_A pretty little milkmaid with a werewolf roaming around? A naughty Victorian streetwalker coming face to face with your namesake Jack? A Perils-of-Pauline heroine who doesn't get rescued at the very last minute? (At the time, I made a mental note to find out if trains went through Sunnydale at night. Cliched, I admit, but it struck me as hilarious if it ended with her being tied to the tracks with a big light chuffing closer and closer…)_

_Ahem. Well, as you know, nothing of the sort happened. For a rather good reason, I must say._

_It was the least little thing, but it came with so many others over so long. I had to find and buy the damn costumes, pack them up, locate a store in Sunnydale, rent it, get all the stuff shipped there-_

_Right in the middle of this, I realized with genuine horror that I wasn't having fun. Not at all. It was instead…well, I hate to mention this, Ripper…actual work. Expensive work._

_Then and there in a warehouse costing me even more money, surrounded by dozens of costumes waiting to be crammed into boxes that I needed to do all by myself, I said out loud, "What the bloody hell is all this for?"_

_Don't think I won't hesitate to do you a bad turn whenever I can, Ripper. But in that existential moment, it came to me how utterly stupid it was to head clear across the country just to settle our differences between us. No, far more sensible to take all the tasks I'd already completed, and have some fun with them._

_This started right away when I remembered a certain gentlemen's club nearby the warehouse filled with my costumes. An arranged conference between myself and the quite sleazy owner of this club had us speedily come to terms worked out to make a nice profit for us both. Even the strippers scheduled for dancing there that night found it somewhat droll to dress up on Halloween in free costumes during their performances. An especially nice touch was for me to offer to conduct a mock magical ceremony in front of the main stage at precisely midnight._

_Well, it's been a very pleasurable week for me since then. As expected, I put in the Janus spell the command that my new ladies with all their skills and abilities will always obey me and never even think of anything other than my comfort and safety. (Should the hint escape you, Ripper, informing the Council about this would be a very bad idea now.)_

_We're planning one last big night at the club, then we'll leave town with all the money the ladies brought in. If you're wondering, the previous owner got thrown completely through the back brick wall after they finished arguing over who'd get to do it, so that took care of him. Regardless, various entertainment corporations will show up sooner or later over copyright issues, and I really don't care to deal with the ensuing lawyers. I suppose a few months lazying around in some tropical paradise the entire winter with a dozen very beautiful women will have to do for me, until I think of something else we can accomplish with the maximum amount of earned gratification._

_Maybe we'll visit Sunnydale then, Ripper._

_Sincerely yours,_

_Ethan Rayne_

_P.S.: Enjoy the picture!_

* * *

Some time later just before first period, Buffy, Willow, and Xander walked into the library. They noticed right away with growing alarm how Giles was blankly staring ahead while seated at his desk. Rushing over, the girls fussed to no effect over the man in his current coma. Only Xander also by the desk saw a sheet of paper on the library floor where it must've fallen out of slack fingers.

Bending down, Xander picked the paper up and straightened while turning it over to look at-

Buffy was uselessly waving her hand back and forth before Giles' unseeing eyes, when both she and Willow then heard from the third Scooby prayerfully chanting, "Hommina, hommina, hommina!"

Glancing there, the Slayer and her friend saw a drooling Xander studying with laser-beam intensity some sort of large sized photograph held in both hands. Reaching over, it took far more strength than Buffy had expected for her to yank that photo from Xander's steadfast grip.

Ignoring this teenager's instant whine to "Give it back!", Buffy and Willow in turn stared with increasing shock at some kind of pictured club with a stage which had several poles scattered throughout this area. Far more fascinating was how a line of chairs in front of the stage was arranged with about twelve women seated there in these chairs. From left to right, the women were perfect representations of females from all sorts of popular media: comic books, computer games, television, movies, and whatnot.

The ladies also had absolutely stunning bodies revealed in barely-there replicas of various costumes, not that anyone in the library was looking at those scraps of clothing.

Flinching from the sudden spray of saliva coming their way, Willow and Buffy heard with shared disbelief how Xander unerringly identified each and every one of those hot women: "Lara Croft, Rio McDonald, Jessica Rabbit, Wonder Woman, Loana, Modesty Blaise, Honey Rider, Daisy Mae, Catwoman, Little Annie Fanny, Emma Peel, and Phaedra!"

Gazing in disbelief at how Xander was craning his neck to look again at the photograph she was holding, Buffy demanded from him, "So, who's the guy?"

"What guy?" came from a clueless slacker.

Glaring at this supreme male idiot, Buffy thrust the picture back under Xander's nose, pointing at someone else also in this photograph. There was indeed a very cheerful man about Giles' age, lying onto his side across the laps of the beaming women centered in the row of chairs. Propping up his head with an elbow leading up to the balancing hand, this unknown person was additionally giving a little brisk wave with the upheld fingers of his other hand towards the camera automatically taking the shot.

Sending a disinterested look at the stranger, Xander just shrugged. "Beats me, Buffy. He's one lucky fella, I gotta say. Hey, G-man must know him, otherwise why would that pic be here? Maybe whoever the dude is, he felt it totally necessary to rub a really great life into Giles' face."

* * *

Author's Note: In case you don't know some of the people Ethan used the Chaos spell to change the strippers into, it's helpful to understand Mr. Rayne is evidently a tit man with a fondness for authenticity.

Rio McDonald: Jane Russell in _The Outlaw_  
Loana: Raquel Welch in _One Million Years B.C._  
Honey Rider: Ursula Andress in _Dr. No_  
Phaedra: Sophia Loren in _Boy On A Dolphin_


End file.
